My Intro: Thanks for Reading!

[RedSoxFan]

Here's the letter. Not intended for actual delivery:

Dear Wife,
I have spent the last several weeks giving a great deal of thought to our situation. I know that one year ago you loved me. You told me with heartfelt emotion as you looked into my eyes. I deeply regret that I was unable to do and say the right things at that time, still I never once stopped loving you. Today I realize that I love you more than I have in the last 20 years. You mean everything in the world to me. I also realize that loving you means recognizing where you are and what you’ve gone through. Over the last many months you’ve had to find a way to make sense of life and reconcile what you thought was to be versus what our situation had become. I know that must have been one of the worst things a person could ever go through. I could never express to you how much I wish I had been able to avoid putting you through such and awful experience. In the end though, all I have to offer is my love and a heartfelt apology. From the bottom of my heart I’m so very sorry for what happened.

A month or more ago when our worlds again collided, I came to you humbly asking for forgiveness and a chance to explore reconciliation between us. I do believe there is still love between us. I believe there is a chance to salvage our life together, to salvage our family and to rebuild in such a way that our daughters may someday believe in marriage and have respect and trust in the male figures in their in lives. I believe we are at a time and place where two profoundly different versions of the future lie before as choices. I’ve made my choice clear.

I also recognize that I am only one part of this reality. Nothing that I think, feel or believe matters unless it aligns with what you think, feel and believe. Several weeks ago I asked you to consider holding off on ending our marriage in exchange for my not hassling you about having a relationship with another man. I did this for several reasons. First, I believed deep in my heart that there is still love between us and that we are truly two people who should be together for the rest of our lives. I believe in the vows that I took when I married you. I believe in that oath we took together in the eyes of god. I also believed that it is possible for you once again to see and feel the same things despite the hurt I’ve caused you in the last year. Finally, I felt that because of the time I had to heal it made sense that you should have some time as well.

I couldn’t have anticipated just how hard it would be to give you that time. I could not have anticipated the toll it would take on me. I have spent weeks battling and struggling with pain and hurt that I couldn’t put into words only to have to remind myself that it must be a fraction of what you went through when I left 11 months ago. It was wrong of me to be with another woman while we were married and it is equally wrong for you to do so now. We are both disrespecting ourselves and the institution of marriage. I’ve made big mistakes, I’ve apologized and I’ve asked for forgiveness. Maybe you will never be able to forgive me. But I have come to realize that if I truly love and respect you and myself, I cannot sit by and accept that the woman I love, honor and cherish, the woman I am married to, be in a relationship with another man.

I’ve gone over this a thousand times in my head. I’ve asked myself what story I could tell my daughters 20 years from now and still hold my head up with dignity and self respect. Some times when you really love someone you just have to let them go. I realize that. I can’t say that I’m happy that you let me go 11 months ago and I can’t say that I want to let you go now. I also realize that there was no way for you to compete with my depression and mid life crisis 11 months ago and I too realize there’s no way right now for old love (comprised of the nuts and bolts and ups and downs of real life) to compete with the fresh exhilarating euphoria of a new found relationship. If this is the path you need to find happiness I am now ready to let you go.

With love and respect forever,

-RedSoxFan